


Starving

by convexity



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Credence Barebone Gets a Hug, Credence Barebone Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Living in Newt Scamander's Suitcase, No Smut, Past Abuse, Platonic Cuddling, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 15:34:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13616355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/convexity/pseuds/convexity
Summary: Please, he longed to say. I need you, too.Affection-starved Credence reacts to Newt calling himself mummy to his creatures.





	Starving

Credence’s breath hitches when Newt murmurs to his creatures. He stops breathing for a moment to better hear him softly placate or chide them. Standing just behind Newt in the suitcase where they’ve been allowing him to hide, insisting he hide with them, Credence knows, immediately and completely, That he is imagining that soft tone turned on him. Surely, that level of care would feel like a sunbeam. Scrutiny without judgement. Credence suddenly felt like he would break without it, come apart at every straining seam.

When Newt hushes “ _shhh, Mummy’s here”_ , Credence feels the bottom drop out of his stomach. That’s what he needed. How could he not have known? The prospect of Newt, gentle and understanding Newt touching his face, peering those inquisitive eyes into his own makes him dizzy.

Credence had sorely missed a mother, a real mother, compassion and healing and everything he imagined a mother was to other people. What he’d gotten was Mary Lou. _Ma_. A sharp contrast, authority without love, making his skin clammy with fear and leaving his palms riddled with scars. He hadn’t realized the void that was left until he’d heard Newt say those words. He imagined them being said to _him._

The absurdity of another male- and one so close to his own age- calling himself _mummy_ isn’t lost on Credence. And yet, the thought makes it somehow even more appealing. That Newt might lend him the sorts of things he had missed-lend him the care he gave his beasts- was intoxicating.

 _Please_ , he longs to say. Please turn around and say that to _me_. _I_ need you, too. He wants to think that Newt wouldn’t deny him if he knew how deep this want ran, how acute his pain was. Newt was a caretaker, a healer. Credence had seen it time and time again down here, the patience and care he displayed, the respect he had for living things. Couldn’t he see how Credence had been hurt? How he was still hurting?

Credence must’ve made a noise in the back of his throat, because _oh god,_ Newt’s looking at him now and not his creatures, and he’s looking so thoughtfully at him. Credence looks away, having nothing at all in the way of an excuse to give.

“Credence?” Credence presses his lips together at the sound of Newt’s concerned voice. He doesn’t know how to ask for what he needs. He doesn’t know if it would be given to him if he did. So many things have surprised him about these people. They are so different from what he has known. But he doesn’t know how to ask.

Newt seems to guess. He comes closer to Credence slowly, allowing him plenty of room to move away. Credence doesn’t. He lets Newt approach, convinced that the screaming urge to be touched is palpable-in the air like humidity.

Newt looks unsure of himself, a little awkward even as he reaches out to touch Credence’s shoulder. Credence found no trickery in Newt’s gaze, no cunning. only concern. Concern and assessment. Still without words to ask, he leans in and lays his head on the man’s shoulder, unsure. He sighs in relief when Newt immediately wraps his arms around him, pulling their bodies together closely. _Oh_. He feels tension melt away, frozen joints and twisted muscles suddenly under hot water, a spring thaw after the breaking damage of frost.

“It’s alright, Credence,” Newt says a little incredulously, still not understanding that nothing is wrong, that this was all Credence wanted, all he ever wanted. Was it so much to ask? He can tell he is doing the right thing, though, by the way Credence begins to hug him back like he’s holding onto him for balance, fists balled in the back of his shirt.

‘It’s alright, you’re alright, I’ve got you.’

Newt rubs a hand over the boy’s back and cups the back of his skull with the other. Remembering the look on the boys face, he ventures.

“Mummy’s here,”

Credence whines. Newt has understood, somehow, miraculously. He’s understood and he’s not disgusted or mocking. Credence’s own embarrassment is overshadowed by his need.

Encouraged, Newt whispers to him again. Confidentially, as if there's anyone down there with them who would hear. “Mummy’s here, darling.”

Credence shudders in his embrace.

" Credence, I’m gonna make it all better, yes?"

Credence nods with no idea what he’s agreeing to.

Newt simply steers them back toward their living quarters, sits him on the sofa sideways so he can get behind him. Credence allows himself to be pulled backward a bit so they’re lengthwise on the sofa, and he’s lying between newt’s legs. Newt holds him, carding fingers through his hair, talking softly about the mooncalves and anything else. He’s talking for the sound, Credence realizes, for the silence-flling, soothing sound.

He’s stroking Credence’s hair back and chastely kissing a spot above his ear between sentences. Credence has never been so indulged. He’s never felt so heavy and so weightless simultaneously, an ocean pulling his eyelids closed, but he doesn’t want to sleep.

“Is this alright?” Newt asks him- accent lilting his words sweetly to Credence’s ear. He nods. Yes.

”Thank you,” he whispers. He doesn’t move, afraid the ministrations to his hair will stop. “Not at all,” Newt says softly. “This is perfectly alright. We can do this whenever you like.“ Credence imagines receiving affection regularly as water or daylight. Would Newt do that?

“You’d…. I mean… you’d want to?” His disbelieving voice sounds hoarse to him, like he’s been crying though he hasn’t.

“Of course,” Newt gave him a little squeeze. “This is nice for me too, you know.’ Newt says. Credence can hear the smile in his voice. “I’ve wanted to wrap you up in a blanket and do this since the first time I saw you,” Newt confesses a little bashfully. “I… I wasn’t sure if I was right but… You seem like you need…to be touched?”

Credence flushed with shame. Could everyone see that? Surely the man who had called himself Graves could, used it to exploit him…

“It’s perfectly normal,” Newt rushes to add. “Everyone needs touch, Credence…affection. And God, what you’ve been through.. I want very badly to give you anything you need. Anything, just… I hope you can trust me enough to ask me for it so I know I’m not overstepping or-”

“Which blanket? This one?” Credence mercifully interrupts, tugging at threadbare but soft blanket hung over the back of the sofa. Newt tugs it out from behind them and drapes it over them both.

Being under the blanket with Newt feels wholly intimate, warm and safe and giddy. He turns so Newt is flush against him, holding him from behind. The sofa is small but it is just another excuse for such close proximity.

“Newt? Will you say it again?” Credence asks. He receives a gentle squeeze of Newt’s arms, and a whisper just for him.

“Mummy’s here now, sweetheart.”


End file.
